Bill Gates is, in addition to the co-creator of Microsoft, one of the richest men in the world. And it is the largest owner of agricultural land in the United States. With the latter, in the state of North Dakota, they are not very happy.

It is a potato farm that costs about half what Gates would have spent on the coveted land closest to his home in Washington.

The sale to Gates of approximately 5,189,213 hectares per 13.5 million dollars in the northeastern corner of the state it was first reported and spotted by AgWeek’s Mikkel Pates earlier this month.

“I’ve had a big hype about this from all over the state, it doesn’t even come from that neighborhood,” Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring told the local NBC affiliate. “Those people they are upset, but there are others who are just furious about it“, He added.

“None of those involved in the deal seem eager to talk about it,” Pates wrote, but found public documents to establish the link between Gates and the buyer, the Red River Trust.

On Tuesday, the North Dakota Attorney General’s Office sent a letter to the Red River Trust informing trustee Peter Headley of a Great Depression rule that banned corporations, limited liability companies, and trusts.carry out agricultural and livestock activities in the state.

“Our office must confirm how your business uses this land and whether this use meets any of the legal exceptions,” the letter reads.

But these are only part of the vast estates that Gates and his ex-wife Melinda own from sea to sea.

According to the Land Report in 2021, the Gates had 597,995 hectares of agricultural land3,049 of recreational area and 63,629 of land in transition from agricultural land to residential and commercial use.

The North Dakota purchase would take those total properties to more than 270,000 acres, though it’s unclear how the property will be divided after Bill and Melinda’s divorce last year.

The dispute and the lands of Gates

Gates, in an Ask Me Anything session on Reddit last year, said his “investment group” was behind the purchases and suggested it was related to the development of seeds and biofuels.

“The agricultural sector is important,” he wrote. “With more productive seeds we can avoid deforestation and help Africa tackle the climatic challenges it already faces. It is not clear how cheap biofuels can be, but if they are, they can solve aviation and truck emissions. “

According to the North Dakota Corporation or the Limited Liability Company Farm Law, there are “some exceptions, such as allowing registered family farms or permitting the use of land for commercial purposes.”

Bill Gates is considered the largest private owner of farmland in the country, according to last year’s edition of Land Report 100, an annual survey of the nation’s largest landowners.